Its been exactly 6 months since the single dumbest newspaper column ever published appeared in The Washington Post. Breathtaking in its ignorance, shocking in its fallibility, astonishing in its author’s perversely misperceived world view, it stands as a monument to sheer cluelessness as an economic discipline.
It wasn’t merely off — its simply hard to find anything market or economic related in it that wasn’t 180 degrees wrong. It is a monument to why economists should never allow their politics to influence their day jobs.
I was otherwise occupied when this fetid pile of foolishness was published. Six months later, it reads even more ridiculously than it did on 9/14/08.
Let’s take a closer look at this, sentence by sentence, and see if we can find anything of value in it. (My comments are ALL CAPS AND BOLD)
Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line
“It was the worst of times, and it was the worst of times.”
I imagine that’s what Charles Dickens would conclude about the current condition of the U.S. economy, based on the relentless drumbeat of pessimism in the media and on the campaign trail. [THAT PESSIMISM WAS THE CORRECT CONCLUSION] In the past two months, this newspaper alone has written no fewer than nine times, in news stories, columns and op-eds, that key elements of the economy are the worst they’ve been “since the Great Depression.” That diagnosis has been applied twice to the housing “slump” and once to the housing “crisis,” to the “severe” decline in home prices, to the “spike” in mortgage foreclosures, to the “change” in the mortgage market and the “turmoil” in debt markets, and to the “crisis” or “meltdown” in financial markets. [THAT’S BECAUSE ALL THOSE SECTORS HAVE BEEN IN ENORMOUS SLUMPS]
It’s a virus — and it’s spreading. Do a Google News search for “since the Great Depression,” and you come up with more than 4,500 examples of the phrase’s use in just the past month. [HOW DOES THIS COMPARE TO OTHER PERIODS? IS THIS A LOT OR A LITTLE?]
But that doesn’t make any of it true. [BUT IT WAS & IS] Things today just aren’t that bad. [UNLESS YOU LOOK AT THE DATA; THEN ITS EVEN WORSE] Sure, there are trouble spots in the economy, as the government takeover of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and jitters about Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers, amply demonstrate. [JITTERS? ABOUT THE BIGGEST BANKRUPTCY IN AMERICAN HISTORY? NICE TIMING] And unemployment figures are up a bit, too. [A BIT? 4 MILLION JOBS LOST SINCE THE RECESSION BEGAN] None of this, however, is cause for depression — or exaggerated Depression comparisons. [WHY NOT?]
Overall, the pessimists are up against an insurmountable reality: In the last reported quarter, the U.S. economy grew at an annual rate of 3.3 percent, adjusted for inflation. [HOW’S THE REVISED GDP DATA?] That’s virtually the same as the 3.4 percent average growth rate since — yes — the Great Depression. [EVERYTHING IS FINE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE, MOVE ALONG]
Why, then, does the public appear to agree with the media? [BECAUSE THEY ARE SMARTER THAN YOU] A recent Zogby poll shows that 66 percent of likely voters believe that “the entire world is either now locked in a global economic recession or soon will be.” [AS WE HAVE LEARNED, A LOT SMARTER] Actually, that’s a major clue to what started this thought-contagion about everything being the worst it has been “since the Great Depression”: Politics. [THE FIRST THING YOU GOT RIGHT: YOUR POLITICS HAS BLINDED YOU TO REALITY]
Patient zero in this epidemic is the Democratic candidate for president. [ITS ALL HIS FAULT!] As it would be for any challenger, it’s in his interest to portray the incumbent party’s economic performance in the grimmest possible terms. [LIKE: “ARE YOU BETTER OFF NOW THAN YOU WERE 8 YEARS AGO?“] Barack Obama has frequently used the Depression exaggeration, including during a campaign speech in June, when he said that the “percentage of homes in foreclosure and late mortgage payments is the highest since the Great Depression.” [DAMN FACTS, HOW DARE HE] At best, this statement is a good guess. [NO, ITS ACCURATE DEPICTION OF DATA. DO YOU KNOW WHAT DATA IS?] To be really true, it would have to be heavily qualified with words such as “maybe” or “probably.” [HOW ABOUT 2 MILLION PLUS FORECLOSURES AND RISING?] According to economist David C. Wheelock of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, who has studied the history of mortgage markets for the Fed, “there are no consistent data on foreclosure or delinquency going all the way back to the Depression.” [YOU ARE GOING WITH “WE DONT HAVE FORECLOSURE DATA GOING BACK THAT FAR?” REALLY?]
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) database, which allows rigorous apples-to-apples comparisons, only goes back to 1979. It shows that today’s delinquency rate is only a little higher than the level seen in 1985. [WHY DON’T I BELEIVE THIS?] As to the foreclosure rate, it was setting records for the day — the highest since the Great Depression, one supposes — in 1999, at the peak of the Clinton-era prosperity that Obama celebrated [IN PERCENTAGE TERMS?] I DONT BELIEVE THAT EITHER] in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention late last month. I don’t recall hearing any Democratic politicians complaining back then. [YES, THE HOUSING COLLAPSE AND CREDIT CRISIS WERE HUGE DURING THE CLINTON YEARS]
Even if Obama is right that the foreclosure rate is the worst since the Great Depression, it’s spurious to evoke memories of that great national calamity when talking about today — it’s akin to equating a sore throat with stomach cancer. [WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?] According to the MBA, 6.4 percent of mortgages are delinquent to some extent, and 2.75 percent are in foreclosure. During the Great Depression, according to Wheelock’s research, more than 50 percent of home loans were in default. [YOU MEAN BACK WHEN MORTGAGES WERE 3 YEAR, INTEREST-ONLY LOANS?]
Moreover, MBA data show that today’s foreclosures are concentrated in that small fraction of U.S. homes financed by subprime mortgages. [THAT WAS TRUE 2 YEARS AGO; WE HAVE SINCE SEEN ALT-A AND PRIME FORECLOSURES RISE] Such homes make up only 12 percent of all mortgages, yet account for 52 percent of foreclosures. [NO LONGER TRUE] This suggests that today’s mortgage difficulties are probably a side effect of the otherwise happy fact that, over the past several years, millions of Americans of modest means have come to own their own homes for the first time. [ASSUMING A MORTGAGE YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY AFFORD IS NOT EQUIVALENT TO OWNING A HOME]
Here’s another one not to be too alarmed about: Obama is flat-out wrong when he frets on his campaign Web site that “the personal savings rate is now the lowest it’s been since the Great Depression.” The latest rate, for the second quarter of 2008, is 2.6 percent — higher than the 1.9 percent rate that prevailed in the last quarter of Bill Clinton’s presidency. [DEMAND DESTRUCTION OF CONSUMER SPENDING CAUSED BY A SEVERE RECESSION WILL DO THAT TO SAVINGS]
Full disclosure: I’m an adviser to John McCain’s campaign [THAT EXPLAINS WHY HE GOT HIS ASS KICKED SO BADLY], though as far as I know, the senator has never taken one word of my advice. [THEN THERE IS HOPE FOR MCCAIN’S JUDGMENT] He’s been sounding a little pessimistic on the economy of late, too. And to be fair, he isn’t immune to the Depression-exaggeration virus, either. At a campaign news conference in July, my fellow adviser Steve Forbes warned that Obama was seeking “the biggest tax increase since Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.” Factual? Almost certainly not.
But at least Forbes wasn’t dissing the economy — he was dissing Obama. And Obama’s infection by the Depression-exaggeration bug goes way back. His first outbreak came on Oct. 2, 2002, in his famous speech opposing the invasion of Iraq [WHAT WAS HE THINKING, OPPOSING THAT WAR?], delivered when he was an Illinois state senator. He said that the invasion was “the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from” a litany of economic troubles including “a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.” [KARL ROVE ATTEMPT AN UNDERHANDED POLITICAL TRICK? SAY IT AINT SO!]
Quite an exaggeration. When state senator Obama made that remark, the Standard & Poor’s 500 had just dropped 11 percent for the month of September 2002. [WE ARE NOW 5 YEARS BELOW THAT LEVEL, TO 1997] But stocks dropped twice that much in October 1987. Since the Great Depression, the stock market has had bigger one-month drops on four occasions. Obama’s pessimism on stocks then happened to be as ineptly timed as it was factually incorrect. [HE DIDN’T SAY SELL STOCKS THEN — DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT LAST WEEK?] Exactly one week later, stocks hit bottom, and over the next five years the S&P 500 more than doubled, surging to new all-time highs. [LEVERAGE, LIQUIDITY AND EASY MONEY WILL DO THAT — TIL YOU RUN OUT OF FUEL . . . AND THEN WHAT?]
So much for Obama’s hyperbole about our terrible economy. But what about the media’s?
A housing “slump,” a housing “crisis”? A “severe” price decline? According to the latest report from the National Association of Realtors, the median price of an existing home is up 8.5 percent from the low of last February. [TRY LOOKING AT IT YEAR OVER YEAR FOR AN ACCURATE READ] And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median price of a new home is up 1.3 percent from the low of last December. [SOLD TO YOU] Home prices may not be at all-time highs — and there are pockets of continuing decline in some urban areas — but overall they’ve clearly stopped going down and have started to recover. [YET ANOTHER INCORRECT STATEMENT; DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT YEAR IT IS?] So why keep proclaiming a “crisis” after it’s over? [YOU DECLARED THE BEAR OVER WHEN THE DOW WAS OVER 11,000; IT HIT 6500 THIS WEEK, A 40% DROP. NICE CALL]
“Turmoil” in the debt markets? Sure, but we’ve seen plenty worse. According to the FDIC, there have been a total of 13 bank failures in 2007 and so far into 2008. There were 15 in 1999-2000, the climax of the Obama-celebrated era of Clintonian prosperity. And in recession-free 1988-89, there were 1,004 failures — almost an order of magnitude more than today. Since the Great Depression, the average number of bank failures each year has been 94. [THE LARGEST INSURER, THE 5 OF THE 10 LARGEST BANKS, AND THE 5 LARGEST INVESTMENT BANKS NO LONGER EXIST THE WAY THEY DID 1 YEAR AGO]
Despite highly publicized losses in subprime mortgage lending, bank equity capital — the best measure of core financial strength — is now $1.35 trillion, more than the $1.28 trillion level of mid-2007, before the “turmoil” even began.
Financial market “crisis” and “meltdown”? Yes, from all-time highs last October, the S&P 500 has fallen 20 percent. But that’s nothing by historical standards. [HOW ABOUT DOWN 50+% ? IS THAT ENOUGH?] Stocks have often fallen more than that over comparable spans of time. They fell more than twice that much in 1974 — which was truly the worst drop since the Great Depression. Even the present 20-percent loss isn’t what it seems. The damage has been heavily concentrated in the financial sector — banks, investment firms and mortgage companies. If you exclude that sector, stocks are off 14.8 percent. [YOU REALLY RAN A MUTUAL FUND ONCE? I CANT SEE WHY THAT DIDN’T WORK OUT]
Some economic indicators — export growth and non-defense capital goods orders such as industrial machinery, for example — are running at levels associated with brisk expansion. [OTHER THAN THE EMPTY SPACE BETWEEN YOUR EARS, MOTHING ELSE SEEMS TO BE “BRISKLY EXPANDING“] Others are running at middling levels, such as the closely followed Institute for Supply Management manufacturing index. But it’s actually difficult to find many that are running at truly recessionary levels. [WHY DID KRUGMAN AND NOT YOU WIN THE NOBEL? IT JUST DOESN’T MAKE SENSE!]
There have been 11 recessions since the Great Depression. And we’re nowhere close to being in the 12th one now. [WOW, YOU AREN’T MERELY BAD — YOU ARE THE WORST ECONOMIST EVER!] This isn’t just a matter of opinion. Words — even words as seemingly subjective as “recession” — have meaning.
In a new working paper, economist Edward Leamer of UCLA’s Anderson School of Management shows that changes in the unemployment rate, payroll jobs and industrial production almost precisely explain every recession as officially determined by the National Bureau of Economic Research. At present, only the unemployment rate exceeds the recession threshold. The other two factors are far from it. According to Leamer’s paper, we’ll only fall into recession “if things get much worse.” [WRONG AGAIN — WE WERE IN A RECESSION 10 MONTHS BEFORE YOU WROTE THIS]
This would suggest that anyone who says we’re in a recession, or heading into one — especially the worst one since the Great Depression — is making up his own private definition of “recession.” And probably for his own political purposes. [HAVE YOU CONSIDERED DENTISTRY AS A CAREER? YOU SURE DON’T HAVE A KNACK FOR THIS ECONOMICS THING]
McCain campaign adviser and former U.S. senator Phil Gramm was right in July when he said that our current state “is a mental recession.” Maybe he was out of line when he added that the United States has become “a nation of whiners.” But when it comes to the economy, we have surely become a nation of exaggerators. [HOW ABOUT A CADRE OF CLUELESS FANTASISTS?]
Yet Gramm was pilloried for his remarks, and McCain had to distance himself from his adviser by joking that in a McCain administration, Gramm would be ambassador to Belarus. What does it say about our nation that it has become political suicide to state the good news that our economy is not in recession? [WE DONT APPRECIATE IDIOTS TELLING US EVERYTHING IS FINE WHEN ITS NOT].
Whatever the political outcome this year, hopefully this will prove to be yet another instance of that iron law of economics and markets: The sentiment of the majority is always wrong at key turning points. [GUESS THAT WASN’T A KEY TURNING POINT] And the majority is plenty pessimistic right now. That suggests that we’re on the brink not of recession, but of accelerating prosperity. [SERIOUSLY, THIS ECONOMICS THING ISNT FOR YOU.]
Maybe this will turn out to be the best of times — at least since the Great Depression. [PERHAPS FORESTRY?]
>
Source:
Quit Doling Out That Bad-Economy Line
By Donald Luskin
Washington Post, Sunday, September 14, 2008; B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091202415.html
What's been said:
Discussions found on the web: